According to the result of a 27-nation survey published in the German magazine Der Spiegel, only 11 percent reported being content with capitalism in its current form.
Furthermore, 23 percent believe the free market economy is deeply flawed: Only in the United States and in Pakistan were at least one in five happy with the current economic system.
To me, it comes as no surprise that the world is turning against free market capitalism, what with the fact that it has proven unable to meet the demands of the modern world socio-economic paradigm.
My assertion may sound somewhat absurd, but just look at the current state of global economic affairs: Capitalism has done a rather poor job of preventing turmoil and chaos. I am not just referencing the current problems in the developed industrial world, but also the perennial ones which have plagued the Third World for well over a century. Just look at Africa, Latin America, etc. Never before has the gulf between the rich and poor been greater; never before have more people, approximately 2.8 billion, lived on less than $2 a day.
Majorities in 22 of the 27 questioned nations agreed the state should take a more direct roll in ensuring that wealth is more equitably distributed. One of the questions asked the respondents if they viewed the collapse of the Soviet Union as negative and 22 percent of the total questioned population agreed that it was negative.
Am I advocating for a return to the Cold War? Naturally that would be ridiculous, but the fact remains that the world is largely either discontent with or outright opposed to capitalism and the world socio-political paradigm.
I would have anticipated that in the U.S., sentiments would diverge from the norm. America stands as the bastion of laissez-faire free-market capitalism, which to me seems ironic since the U.S. is reeling most from the current economic crisis. Though with such television personalities as Glen Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Bill O’Reilly injecting unsubstantiated and insane fears of a looming “socialist” takeover of the country, one in which government agents dressed in black will storm your home, vaccinate your children and kill your elders, one can hardly be surprised that many Americans not only fear change but actively attempt to undermine it.
I want single-payer health care, free university education, yearly month long paid vacations, wage and price controls, comprehensive regulation of financial and business institutions, etc. I am not alone in wanting these, yet in wanting them I will be branded a leftist, a Commie and a bedfellow of Marx, but apparently much of the world agrees with me. From Zimbabwe to Germany, Israel to Venezuela, people are clamoring for change, perhaps not as shrilly and duplicitously as the Tea Party activists. The world agrees—capitalism just isn’t for us.
Max can be reached by e-mail at maximilian.feldhake@asu.edu.
